Thursday, March 2, 2017

Laws of Home Improvement

A few weeks ago, our bathroom on the main floor overflowed overnight and when I discovered it in the morning, it was already raining toilet water in the basement. Which is why our bathroom is currently gutted awaiting a new wood floor, vanity and toilet. The work is slated to begin next week. In the meantime, I've been spending more time in the other bathrooms in my house contemplating how dated they are. It's still 1987 in the bathrooms in my house. Do you remember how stylish homes were in the 80's? No? Because they weren't! And although we've lived in this house over a decade, something must be done. And it must be done right now.

I'm not good at math,

so I don't understand how these home improvement projects keep multiplying.

It's the Law of Home Improvement: as soon as something in your house gets improved, you realize how terrible everything else really looks. It's the exact same thing with cleaning, which is precisely why I don't clean very often. Why start what's destined to be a total pain in the ass and a helluva lot of money only for your kids and/or dogs to ruin? Except once you get the idea, no matter how impractical, you can't stop yourself from imagining the possibilities. And how much better your life will be. Which it won't because you'll be broke and constantly worried about your new stuff getting broken. So, you become a raving bitch. But, of course you don't know that at the start of a project.

It started off innocently enough, I ran downstairs to the guest bathroom to pee. (I didn't realize how many times I peed a day until I had to go either upstairs or downstairs to do it. Which means my ever faithful bathroom buddies, my Labrador Retrievers, Bonnie and Clyde, also have to go up and down the stairs to watch me pee. It's a whole potty parade!) So, I was sitting on the toilet with two dogs staring at me, when I diverted my gaze from them to really look around. There's only one towel rack and we were on the verge of having two house guests. I know! I'd just get a couple hooks to put up to accommodate more towels.

But, you know that's not how it happened.

There is nothing that "just" anythings in home improvement.

Burning your house down would just be easier than improving it.

I studied the stock of towel hooks at Home Depot and Lowe's. Requiring at least five trips, before, it became clear to me. If I was getting new hooks, I'd need a new bath towel bar, hand towel loop, toilet paper holder, drawer pulls, faucet and light fixture to match. Obviously. Sure, I had only a few days til house guests arrived and I had other more important things to do to prepare the house for the floor to get sanded, but this would be a quick and easy install. I'd do it myself. Easy peasy. I'd be done by the time my husband got home.

But, you know that's not how it happened.

I got as far as taking off the old hardware, which is when I needed a drill. I went out to the garage, took the battery off the charger and attached it to the drill. And exactly nothing happened. It was dead. Why do we have a drill that doesn't work in our garage? I knew we had another one with a cord, so I went looking for it. I found the drill bit in the size I needed to drill new holes, but no drill. Meaning, it was somewhere tucked away in one of the boxes that line the high shelves in there. And I'd need a ladder to get to them. And now I think I finally know what Meatloaf was singing about when he said, "I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that." You had me a ladder. I'm not climbing a ladder to search through heavy boxes to find a stupid drill. That's when it was clear to me that I was going to dump this project on my husband to finish. Which is exactly what I did.

In order for the new light fixture to fit, the mirror glued to the wall had to come off. And when my husband was painstakingly removing it because it must've been attached with superglue, it broke. But, rather than help him with any of that, I went back to Lowe's to find the perfect mirror to match all the other new stuff in the bathroom. I had no choice really, the Laws of Home Improvement dictated it's what I had to do.

To think this all started with one toilet that overflowed. And ironically, the only thing our insurance doesn't cover for that project is a new toilet. So, if you need me, I live in the toilet aisle at Lowe's now.

2 comments:

I like watching home improvement shows on tv but hate how they make it look so easy. We have a ton of projects to do here at home because of course, HGTV has set the standard for how one's home should look like. Dammit. But like you, I 'won't do that'. Trouble is, the hubs forces me to get involved somehow even if it's just with assisting. And then of course I'm also the nagger since I like timelines. That's the other thing. DIY projects always require math like you said cos you need to know how to multiply the time line your husband gives you. It's always AT LEAST times 2. *sigh*

There is no doubt that houses plot against us as homeowners. How many times I have run back and forth from home to the box store to pick up the just the right bolt or screw only to find it didn't fit. Don't fall for the ruse that you can find how to fix anything on YouTube, either. Those guys have tools I have never seen or heard of and no one can follow their directions.

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About me

I'm Marie, author of the book, Rock the Kasbah: A Memoir of Misadventure. Not to be confused with the movie or Zooey Deschanel. I'm a forty-something writer, dancer, world traveler, wife and mother of four who moved back to Colorado from living abroad in Morocco a few years ago. Oh and did I mention I have some serious social anxiety? And that I screw things up a lot? Like a whole lot.